O.C. poised to order mentally ill into treatment

Kelly Thomas's death in 2011 sparked an agonizing debate over whether Orange County should embrace Laura's Law, which would allow officials to order severely mentally ill people into court-imposed outpatient treatment, even if said treatment is against the patients' will. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Money is no longer the issue. Worries about civil liberties and personal freedom have faded. And now, two years after homeless schizophrenic Kelly Thomas died following a gruesome altercation with Fullerton police, Orange County is poised to put the controversial Laura's Law on its books.

Thomas’s death in 2011 sparked an agonizing debate over whether Orange County should embrace the law, which would allow officials to order severely mentally ill people into court-imposed outpatient treatment, even if said treatment is against the patients' will.

Families pleaded with the Board of Supervisors to adopt the law, arguing it might prevent tragedies like Thomas’s, and detailing how excruciating it is to watch loved ones descend into darkness and be powerless to help.

Some who suffer with mental illness protested fiercely, saying the decision to enter or refuse treatment should be theirs, and theirs alone.

The argument then was moot in many ways, because Laura’s Law was prohibitively expensive (it could apply to some 120 severely mentally ill people who pose a danger to themselves or others, and would cost between $5.7 million to $6.1 million a year, the county said). O.C. just didn’t have the money.

But all that may soon be history.

A new bill – on the governor’s desk, awaiting his signature – would expressly allow counties to spend Proposition 63 money on Laura’s Law, which some lawyers said had been forbidden. (Prop. 63, if you are not a walking encyclopedia of California ballot initiatives, added a 1 percent tax on those earning more than $1 million a year, to be spent on mental health programs. O.C. expects about $104 million in Prop. 63 money this year.)

On Aug. 28 – anticipating that this bill would be signed -- the O.C. Mental Health Board gave a unanimous thumbs-up to spending $4.4 million on Laura’s Law outpatient treatment for the severely mentally ill in 2014-15. Several more layers of approval are required before this becomes reality, but officials feel the time has come.

“Having as many options available to get individuals into treatment as possible is a good thing,” said Mary Hale, behavioral health services director for the county. “It’s one more tool that we can use.”

Orange County Supervisor John Moorlach – who was quite skeptical of Laura’s Law until taking it to the county’s Homeless Task Force and studying up on mental health issues – has become a believer as well.

“Families that are dealing with children who have mental health issues need another tool in the tool box,” Moorlach said. “A Superior Court judge cannot force someone with schizophrenia to take his medication. But they can tell him to take it. That’s the ‘black robe effect,’ and it can be powerful. A lot of people who are mentally ill just don’t know they’re mentally ill, and families are telling us, ‘We need some outside help.’ I’m in the camp now. If we can provide this extra help, we should.”

Orange County appears to be at the front of the curve on this issue: Only one California county has adopted Laura’s Law (Nevada County), and only one has a modified pilot program (Los Angeles).

“We’ve been working on this for quite some time,” said Moorlach. “I get Laura’s Law. I get it. The issue has always been, how do we pay for it?”

CLEARING HURDLES

When California voters agreed to tax the rich to fund programs for people with serious mental health issues in 2004, the selling point was that the money would be focused like a laser on the most tragic and intractable cases.

Nearly a decade – and $10 billion – later, critics say that’s not quite what has happened. One recent study said Prop. 63 spurred a “feeding frenzy” among social service providers, many of whose programs are only peripherally related to mental health. Critics insist money should be spent on programs like Laura’s Law – but lawyers concluded that, because of how the law was written, such spending was not allowed.

Enter Sen. Darrell Steinberg (D – Sacramento), who was Prop. 63’s author. With the prodding of folks right here in Orange County, Steinberg introduced a bill clarifying that Prop. 63 funds can, indeed, be used to provide mental health services under Laura’s Law. Gov. Jerry Brown is expected to sign it.

“Laura’s Law will not solve California’s mental healthcare challenge; it is a last resort at the very end of a continuum of care,” Steinberg said in a prepared statement. “But counties seeking to implement Laura’s Law must have a clear funding source so that the debate about whether to implement these programs focuses on the pros and cons of the treatment, rather than a dispute over funding sources.”

Laura's Law was passed by the California Legislature in 2003 in honor of Laura Wilcox a 19-year old (pictured above) who was working at a public mental health clinic in Nevada County during her winter break from college. A man who had refused treatment stormed the clinic, shooting Wilcox and two others.

Kelly Thomas's death in 2011 sparked an agonizing debate over whether Orange County should embrace Laura's Law, which would allow officials to order severely mentally ill people into court-imposed outpatient treatment, even if said treatment is against the patients' will. JEBB HARRIS, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
Laura Wilcox, 19, was killed in 2001 at a county social services building in Nevada City, Calif. Three people were killed and two others were wounded at the county office and a restaurant by a gunman investigators say was a mental patient convinced the restaurant was trying to poison him. AP

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